Regulation, Regulation, Regulation. We’re faced with it, and now the regulators are going Presidential on us and claiming executive privilege at the FCC. You want to know how they’re coming up with their marching orders for America? Too bad. Just ask watchdog StimulatingBroadband.com.
You want a laugh? George Soros-funded front group Free Press is suing the FCC… because Net Neutrality isn’t enough of a power grab. Incredible.
Jay Rockefeller is defending Net Neutrality, meanwhile, against Kay Bailey Hutchison’s withering attacks, and push for a Congressional Review Act repeal of the regulations.
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Up late tonight. Spent the better part of the last 8 hours setting up my new computer*. Lots of data to transfer around and all that. But fortunately there aren’t many new developments lately to talk about, so let’s go.
I’m going to start with LightSquared. Out of the blue, it’s been repeatedly claimed that LightSquared is “the next Solyndra,” and that some nebulous form of corruption is somehow benefiting the company. Is it possible? Certainly. But I’d like to see some proof that LightSquared received actual benefits from the Obama administration, as Solyndra got free money from the government in the form of loan guarantees.
No, I won’t accept proof that Barack Obama is a bad guy as proof that LightSquared had something going on. I’m playing the role of skeptic on this particular issue, because I don’t want it to be true. I want America to get more spectrum used for 4G wireless Internet, and I want us to have more national networks supplying 4G wireless Interent. LightSquared coming online would give us both, as LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja has said.
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November 20. That’s the day the Obama administration has chosen to regulate the Internet after what even The Hill calls “a partisan vote” at the FCC to pass the Net Neutrality regulations. I’m hoping Verizon and/or MetroPCS will sue and win a stay before that date, though I don’t know how likely that is for a court to act that strongly.
I’ve said much about the House and its strong opposition to Barack Obama’s regulatory overreach, but Senators are unhappy as well. Kay Bailey Hutchison is ready to fight. It looks like she will push to get the Senate to go forward with using the Congressional Review Act, as the House already did, to repeal Net Neutrality.
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I’ve basically got three topics for tonight’s edition. It’s sad that two of them are government antitrust actions. I suppose elections do have consequences, and one key consequence of Barack Obama’s election is corporatist selection of winners and losers in the marketplace.
The third main topic: Alleged corruption. I’m still playing the role of skeptic on accusations that the Obama administration is playing favorites in favor of LightSquared, the firm that has been caught in a regulatory quagmire over GPS issues it may have found a workaround for.
I want more 4G competition, but I also welcome Darrell Issa giving the LightSquared/Obama matter some oversight. I’d love to have a clear answer to this question. I can’t support fake competition brought about by corruption. I reject Obama propping up Sprint Nextel and if it turns out that Obama is propping up LightSquared then I reject that as well.
Which brings us to the next topic: AT&T and T-Mobile against the Department of Justice.
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I’d like to start off tonight’s edition by saying that I enjoy some of the pushback I’ve been getting in this Tech at Night series. It’s fun when someone comes here, telling me I’m all wet, then ending up admitting they’re enamored of the whole Obama regulatory apparatus. It feels good to have my pro-liberty, pro-growth, small-government positions validated like that. So to the multifaceted George Soros astroturf machine I say this: keep it coming.
And of course, one of their key talking points is that wireless competition is in danger. Consider that Radio Shack says you have nine options, and Cellular South, a carrier you might never have heard of, is suing AT&T now, while budding 4G national competitor LightSquared answers accusations it’s buying favors from Obama. It’s hard to see how the DoJ lawsuit is anything but an attempt to prop up Sprint Nextel, and hard to disagree with T-Mobile thinking its deal with AT&T will proceed on the merits.
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We’ve lost some battles lately. That’s what happens when we let a radical Democrat become President. We let Patrick Leahy’s America Invents Act pass, imposing on America a Euro-style patent system that rewards lawyering, not being the first to invent something. We let the FCC pass an illegal Net Neutrality power grab, and that will have to go to court soon.
We’re even seeing some nominally Republican-run states get on big government bandwagon against AT&T, sadly joining in the effort by the Obama administration and Sprint Nextel to hinder competition and pad Sprint’s bottom line. What are Ohio and Pennsylvania doing there? Come on.
But at least we’re on track to get meaningful 4G competition. Some question the firm’s ties with the Obama administration, but I welcome progress toward LightSquared launching its network. Unlike Obama and Holder, trying to prop up Sprint, I actually want competition and lower prices.
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Competition, growth, and innovation are all important for the American wireless Internet market. We need more, better, and cheaper service if we’re going to move in large numbers to wireless Internet, as some are predicting. This means competition and growth in the 4G sector is vital to our future economic health.
And that, in a nutshell, is why I think it’s essential that the government stay out of the way and allow the AT&T/T-Mobile deal to proceed. Obviously now it’s too late to prevent a lawsuit, since it’s already happened, but dropping the suit would be better than proceeding on the current anti-competitive path.
That’s the one fact that more and more evidence is bringing to light: stopping the merger is the anti-competitive act, not the merger itself. Both Sprint Nextel and the Department of Justice are threatening competition, hindering us from moving beyond the 4G duopoly of Verizon and Sprint Nextel.
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Friday has come and gone at last, and in fact we’re well into Saturday now unfortunately, due to my needing to have covered so much this time.
Additionally, at long last it looks like the ongoing saga of California vs Amazon is coming to an end. Amazon had already floated the idea of compromise with the Democrats on their unconstitutional plan to try to bully Amazon with respect to California’s high sales tax rates.
But now it looks like the firm got cold feet. Having already put itself on the line with a plan to lobby for a national law on the matter, with a promise to pay the tax if now law is passed in two years, they caved and cut the “safe harbor” down to one year. As you might guess from how I said that, I disagree that Amazon was wrong to play hardball. I think Amazon was wrong to give in after playing hardball, because if things go wrong they risk victor’s justice.
Joe Mathews says Amazon has given an example of “how not to do business in California.” At this point, I don’t see why anyone should do business in California, with all the corruption and corporatist socialism going on in this one great state.
This matters if you don’t live in California, by the way, because of the next steps.
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